View topic - What did you do with or to your DeSoto today?

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I participated in a small but wonderful car show at the College of the Ozarks in Hollister, MO. It was put on by the college students and was free. Because of this there were only three awards: Most Original, Peoples Choice, and Best of Show.

Of about 50 cars, there were only three MoPars - two '67 Dodge Chargers and my '59 DeSoto. The best thing turned out to be the owner of the Chargers works for Presley's Jubilee show place in Branson and is willing to work with me and the NDC in hosting a national.

Presley's is where the Route 66 MoPar club had their show a couple of weeks ago where there were 144 cars. So their parking facility provides a very adequate show field for an automobile show. Not to mention Branson is full of activities available to all ages and interests.

Getting back to the College of the Ozarks Father's Day show, unfortunately it was a participant and spectator voting event and the AACA of Kansas City showed up in force and through their scheme of "selected" voting, walked off with two of the three awards. Not illegal, and probably is done on a regular basis, but I just expected a club of this stature to have more class.

I spent the day fabricating another body part for my '48 Desoto limo. Sometimes it feels like I'm building from scratch! "BUT I WILL SAVE THIS DESOTO!" I find it hard to believe my self but these are all the pieces I have fabricated and replaced so far in the last few months of owning this car, I WILL SAVE THIS DESOTO !

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Last edited by BillCypher on Mon Aug 22, 2016 2:17 am, edited 3 times in total.

Here in the beautiful Ozarks, it quit raining for a day or so and I figured I could get the '59 Firesweep out for another cruise. That is just what I did and even in 95 degree heat, the old girl performed like a champ. Just a tiny bit of spark knock under extreme conditions but that was it. Stopped at a gas station for some premium ethanol free unleaded, put a bottle of octane booster and lead substitute in, and after 20 minutes of answering questions, was finally on my way. Otherwise all went well and as usual, got plenty of horn honks, yells, waves, thumbs-up, etc. No other car I have ever owned gets the attention this one does - and I enjoy every second of it.

Time for a tune-up of the 1952 FireDome. New points, condenser, cap, rotor- the works. Here is a shot of setting the dwell on the dual-point distributor using an old AC dwell meter. Note the wood distributor stand.

Cool! I like it. That's the easiest way to set dual points for sure. But you know what? I'm glad that I have single points in my '59 Firesweep so I don't have to do all that - did enough of that stuff during my old racing days (before electronic ignition).

Ha Ha! You are right Fred, single point cars are a lot easier. But the tool works on them too. I can't count the number of times I have found an in-spec point gap that results in an out-of-spec dwell angle. I enjoy working on these old machines almost as much as I enjoy driving them.

Yesterday, the Buckeye Chapter had a meeting at the Printz's farm south of Arcanum, OH. So I drove my '48 Custom 4-dr sedan to the meet, about 50 miles each way. I stayed off of the interstates and took the old highways where I can cruise along at about 50+ mph without having too many cars behind me. The temperature was about 10 degrees cooler than what it had been for the past few days, so the drive wasn't uncomfortable, and the engine ran a little bit cooler than usual. Greg Walters drove his '56 Firedome sedan over from Piqua (less than 30 miles one-way), which wasn't any problem for him, especially considering that he had just won Longest-Distance-Driven Post WW II at the NDC Convention last month near Baltimore, MD.

Of course, Dave Printz had his 1950 Custom club coupe out front. He has a dozen more non-De Soto antique Mopar vehicles with his latest "new" toy being a 1969 Dodge A100 pickup with a 170 slant six engine between the two seats.

Dale, son of Dave and Mary Beth, grilled 1/2 lb hamburgers to go along with all of the other food members brought - which, as usual, was more food than we could eat, but that didn't stop us from trying.

The next Buckeye Chapter meet is planned for 10 September at the Liberty Aviation Museum in Port Clinton, OH. (Since that's about 180 miles one-way, I think I'll wimp out and drive something modern.)

Today the Great Lakes Chapter held our summer meeting in Portage, MI. We met for lunch at the Fieldstone Restaurant, held our meeting there then cruised to the Brookdale Assisted Living Center to display our Desoto's for the residents. We had 9 cars and 18 people show up.Our next meeting will be at the Ypsilanti Orphan Car show on Sept. 18th. We welcome any of our friends in the Buckeye Chapter to join us at Ypsi. You have to pre-register for the show by Aug. 28th so keep that in mind if you plan on coming.

This weekend one of our AACA Region members hosted an informal cruise-in at our local German-American Club. Rosemary and Neal Stolowich arrived first with their beautiful '57 Firesweep Sportsman and saved a space for my '55 Firedome. The DeSotos received a lot of attention and admiring looks. We enjoyed the great german food, drink and entertainment.

Big annual cruise in Branson, MO this weekend. Three days of show and shine and then capped off with a parade of cars (Midnight Cruise) on one of the main streets of Branson. This event is always the second weekend in August which is murderous because of heat and humidity. But, it is what it is.

Most of the cars are non-MoPar and as far as I can tell from the 550 cars, my '59 Firesweep is the only DeSoto participating.

I finally moved my S-11 "Carlo" forward six feet in order to provide clearance for a garage I am building for him inside a larger storage building. A building within a building. The car is dead but I used my Ranger pick-up with a tow strap to pull him along, which was not easy at all. The Ranger kept spinning it's wheels. I had to use lots of kitty litter, leveling dirt and a lot of attempts.

Of course, it helped a great deal when I discovered a rear tire was flat and pumped it up. Moved a lot easier.

I drove my '59 Firesweep to the "Orphan" car show here in Branson sponsored by the local Studebaker-Packard club. There were only about 25 cars there mostly Studebakers and Packards which was expected. There was one '66 or '67 Pontiac GTO, one '73 Plymouth Roadrunner, and my DeSoto that stood out from the crowd. Overall it was a bad day as there were absolutely no spectators - only the car owners plus it was hotter than a firecracker with high humidity and temps in the upper 90's. I wound up leaving early, visited one of the auto museums, and drove around Branson for fun and excitement which gave the DeSoto a fair share of beneficial exercise as well.-----"It's delightful, it's delovely, it's DeSoto"

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